Great Canopy: Tens

Great Canopy is a six piece band hailing from Pleasantville, NY. They released their debut LP Fossils last May on bandcamp, tagging their album and songs with the tongue-in-cheek moniker of “sad surf”. The sounds of “Ten” are sprawling and intense, jangly guitar punching with flourish and prog-like sensibility. The vocals mirror the instruments, pregnant with energetic punch and rawness. Each howling line is delivered with ample instrumentation behind it, giving the track a feeling of largeness in scale. Synthesizers, clashing drums, and ambient sounds give the song a tangible body, which waxes and wanes with the emotions – there are many – of the soundscape. On “Ten”, vocalist Thom Lombardi has a singing voice not dissimilar to Aaron Maine of Porches – warbling and almost-but-not-quite off-key. The lyrics are intimate, but delivered with as much power as the instruments backing them.

Great Canopy’s “Ten” sounds incredibly intentional and extensively thought out, but perhaps to a fault. The last minute of the song features an effete soundclip of children singing, detracting from the shimmery guitars a minute prior, and ending the song on a cliche note rather than a solid orchestral conclusion. Overall, however, “Tens” is a great track and I’m looking forward to future releases.

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No Smoking Media is a regularly updated and hand curated feed of music releases, free from hierarchical judgment and included regardless of press coverage. Our priority is for our readers to discover good, creative music that they might not otherwise hear, and for artists we admire to gain a wider audience and be recognized for their musical excellence.